NewsClimes

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

InformationTechnology (Industry) Association of Nigeria (ITAN) has berated the National Assembly (NA) over what the group said was the inability of both houses to establish core Information Technology (IT) Committees in the past six months of the new dispensation.

Speaking through its president, Chief Jimson Olufuye, while reacting to the current state of the nation on its recent celebration of 47 Independence Day on October 1, said that with regard to the Legislature, there is no atom of seriousness on how to move the nation forward from that arm of the government.

This, he noted was evident in both houses inability to establish IT committees.

“There is no serious attention paid to IT going by the absence of IT committees in the Senate and the House,” he declared.

Chief Olufuye added that if the country is serious about where it would be by 2020, then it has got to take IT very seriously, which must be propelled by the apparatus of government.

According to him, if the Vision 2020, were to be realised, policies and expectations of the people would tend towards matching.

“If we truly agree that IT will power us into the Vision 2020 then policies andexpectations must match,” he asserted.

ITAN president also said that his expectation has not been met in any way by this current dispensation, stressing though that the executive has shown some support, yet between the executive and legislature, they are working at cross purposes.

“There is a mismatch of policies and expectations in both the executive and the legislative arm,” he noted, emphasising that the Executive, for instance, has shown clear desire to streamline Information Technology development viz –a-viz technology convergence.

“Yet there is disjoint of focus of key agencies in this regard,” he said.

According to him, key government players in the IT sector such as the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), should be workingwith same strategic focus and to compliment each other.

He described as worrisome that while NCC reports to the Ministry of Information and Communication, NITDA reports to the Science and Technology.